Relationship between stress, coping and nursing support of parents of preterm infants admitted to tertiary level neonatal intensive care units of Karnataka, India: A cross-sectional survey

When a preterm infant is hospitalized, parents experience stress. Support by neonatal nurses is essential to relieve stress. This study investigated the interrelationships among stress, coping and nursing support of parents of preterm infants and the level of stress among mothers and fathers was compared. Descriptive cross-sectional survey was conducted using interview technique in tertiary level neonatal intensive care units of six hospitals of India among 62 mothers and 38 fathers of preterm infants. Beyond descriptive statistics, Pearson's product-moment correlation to find interrelationships between stress, coping and nursing support of parents and Independent sample t test to find mean difference of level of stress among parents were used. Mild negative correlation found between nursing support and stress (r = −0.199, p = 0.047) implying that nursing support reduced stress and significant difference in mean stress scores among parents indicating mothers experienced more stress when compared to fathers.